11. troublemakers

by emily de villaincourt

illustrated by danny delacroix and konrad kraus

click here for previous chapter, here to begin at the beginning

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

the buildings in which the princesses were housed were on top of a hill six miles from the nearest village, known simply as "the village" to the girls and the staff. a bus drove up twice a day from the village, bringing up and taking back the guards and cooks and other staff who chose to live off post and bringing up any mail. the guards who lived off post were assigned turns driving the bus and got a little extra pay for doing so. no "outsiders" ever came up, though there was nothing to prevent them from coming up and gawking at the buildings if they had a mind to. none ever did. miss prue could have gone down to the village, but she never did. the buildings were set about a hundred yards back from the road. at first a guard had always been stationed outside the main building, but after a while miss prue and helga had decided it was a waste of time. during the daylight hours there was almost always somebody outside anyway. at night the front door was locked and there was always someone in the guards room just inside the door. the area around the buildings was always lit at night and the area between the buildings and the road was brightly lit. nobody in the village seemed to be particularly interested or curious or to find the place mysterious. guards and staff members - some of whom had lived in the village all their lives - came and went every day, and told anybody who asked that nothing very exciting was going on. there were not very many men in the village, and especially not very many young men. *** the guards locker room and lounge area was just inside the front door. helga had a desk in a little area partitioned off in a corner of the room. she was sitting at it one morning making out a duty roster when two of the guards - zelda and monika - came in. they walked over to the desk. zelda spoke. "good morning, helga." "good morning." helga looked up, mildly curious. the guards did not have to "report" to her, they just had to be where they were supposed to be at the right time. zelda looked down at the paper helga was writing on. "any changes?" "no. not really. why, did you want some change?" "no. but i got a question." monika sat down on the edge of the desk. "you don't mind if i park my fat ass here, do you?" "be my guest. what is your question?" helga asked zelda. "some of us were hanging out at terry's down in the village last night, and we got to talking - " zelda looked over at monika but monika was just staring at helga . "and -?" helga prompted her. "well, you know how some of us are helping the girls - our girls - with their books that they're writing -?" "yes, i've heard that some of you are," helga answered. "it's not against the rules, " said zelda. "i know, it's says right in the rules that you can. and there's some stuff about the staff not having expertise or something. so?" "how about you?" monika interrupted. "you helping your girl out?" "no, she's pretty bright, she doesn't need any help from me." "but you would if she asked you?" helga shrugged. "maybe. she's not asking me." "and besides," monika eyed helga. "you're pretty busy running the place and all." helga stared back. "i don't run the place. i just help prue out a little." "yeah, right." "do you want to do what i do? just stay up here like i do, and never go down to the village. that's why prue gives me a little extra to do. that's all." "how come you like it up here so much?" zelda asked. "you know why. no men." zelda and monika both laughed. "i'd think you'd want to see a guy once in a while," said zelda. "even if you don't want to fuck them or anything. just for a change of pace, to see someone a little different." "that's not the way i see it. now, did you have anything else to ask me? or were those your questions?" "no," zelda said. "like i said, we had a question about helping the girls." "and that question is - " "well, when we get together - at terry's or wherever - we know - most of us - how our girls are doing and we can exchange information, you know?" "i wouldn't have thought you were all that interested," said helga. "but go on." "what's to prevent us from passing the information on to the girls, so they know how the others are doing?" helga thought a few seconds. "nothing, i suppose." "so it's cool?" "let me think." helga rubbed her eyes. "just - just use some common sense. don't talk about it in the lunch room or the library. don't flaunt it. wait until you are alone with your girls." she looked up. "does that answer your question?" "maybe," zelda answered, with a glance at monika. "there could be more to it," said monika. "what?" "suppose they actually want to help each other? if one of the girls wanted to help another one, they could use us. we could pass information back and forth. would that be o k?" helga stared at monika. "has this actually come up?" "not yet," said monika. "but what if it did? it's kind of a hole in the whole system, if you think about it." "why would they want to help each other?" asked helga. "they are competing against each other. one of them is going to get fed to the lions or whatever." "why?" zelda asked. "the whole system is set up so they can't help each other. so they must think they will if they can. that's what half the rules are about. the ones that aren't about them escaping." helga sighed, and slapped her pencil down on the desk. she looked around. the other guards on the morning shift had all gone to their posts. some of the guards and staff who had been relieved were outside on the bus. "what is this? do i need this? what are you, a couple of fucking troublemakers? who needs this shit?" "hey, don't get pissy on us !" monika answered. "we thought we were doing the right thing coming to you." helga frowned, then laughed. "yeah, you're right. i'm sorry. i shouldn't have snapped at you. it's just - none of this entered my mind before." "maybe we should go to prue," zelda said. "no, no, don't do that - yet. let me think about it. i'll ask her if i think i have to." helga looked down at the desk, then back up at zelda. "let me ask you - how much are any of you actually helping them?" "me?" said zelda. "i'm practically writing it for her." "really?" "yeah, really." helga laughed."why?" zelda shrugged. "it's fun. it's something to do. it beats just sitting up there staring at the wall. but i don't want to lose the job over it." "or go to jail," monika added. "nobody's said anything about jail," said helga. "the worst that could happen is you could lose the job." "if you say so." "how about you?" helga asked monika. "you helping your girl?" "i don't have a regular girl. i do swings. you know that." "yeah, that's right." "but i'll tell you who is. olga - the bible lady. i talk to her some on the bus and she says she's helping her girl, practically doing it for her." "huh." helga rubbed her forehead. "all right - just - for now i'm going to pretend we didn't have this conversation. just be cool and use your common sense, all right? and i'll think about talking to prue about it." "we thought we were doing the right thing asking you," monika repeated. "you were, you were. i shouldn't have got mad. i'm sorry. anything else?" monika looked at zelda. "yeah. there's something else i'm curious about." "what?" "the princess in the tower." "you mean - " "the one that's kept up in the top floor, past prue's apartment. that you need the key from prue to bring stuff to." "and don't have a guard of her own," zelda added. "i guess you could say prue is guarding her," helga said. "she keeps her locked up." "any reason?" monika asked. "why don't you ask prue?" said helga. "she tell you the reason?" "she might have." "is it because she is crazy? or gets violent?" "those are good guesses. like i say, you can ask prue yourself, if you are that interested. she is always available, to all staff." "or maybe she's prue's sweetie pie. and she wants to keep her all to herself." "that's another good guess. or she might be a werewolf, or a vampire, or the octopus queen from outer space. those are good guesses too." "i get the impression miss prue doesn't care too much for menfolk." helga laughed. "no, she doesn't. like me. anything else?" "no," said monika. "that ought to do it. for now." "then have a nice day. and thanks again for coming to me." zelda and monika moved off. a couple of guards who had been relieved came in and changed, then went out to the bus. after a while the bus started down the hill. helga went to the window and watched it disappear. laurene's tale

fenwick - 7. a man not to be trifled with

by minette de montfort

illustrated by danny delacroix and rhoda penmarq

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

click here for previous chapter of fenwick

click here to begin fenwick

click here to begin the 14th princess

admiral morwyn was not the only witness to muggleton's bursting through the hedge -for needless to say it was indeed poor muggleton who burst through the hedge - for who else could it have been? - i put it to you - reader, if perchance you exist, we are not here to play tricks on you but to tell a plain tale as plainly as possible - the good old fashioned way, around the hearth, around the campfire, at the old roadside inn as the landlord prods the embers with his blackened poker - blackened by centuries of low smoke and weary travelers tales - all hastening to the same end - oblivion - but to proceed - we will tell our tale - because every tale must be told - no matter how dreary or boring - yes, every tale must be told - and will be told - every song must be sung - down to the last repeated chorus - every dog will have his day - every cat will have his nip - though at night they all are gray - every nip will have his tuck - every tuck will have his friar - every friar will have his fat jolly nun - every fat jolly nun will have her flask of ale at the bar of the old roadside inn where the travelers tell their timeworn tales - their tales that must be told. yes, tales that must be told. but not by muggleton. no, not by muggleton. muggleton was given his chance, his chance to tell his own tale - and a sad enough tale it was, to be sure - and he made - i will not say a complete hash of it, no, not a complete hash, but by god, we have to get on with it, don't we? so we will nor hear from muggleton again - we will hear of him to be sure, for he is part of this sorry tale - that must be told regardless - as all tales must be told - but not from him. on with it, man, on with it. admiral morwyn was not the only witness to muggleton's bursting through the hedge - beckwith, the butler who ruled castle morwyn with an iron hand - or with a rod of steel, or perhaps with a rod of steel in his iron hand - or in his iron fist, i believe that is the correct term - a tale should be told in correct terms - what, i ask you, is the point of telling it otherwise? - beckwith happened to be looking out the window - i should say, a window, as there was more than one window in castle morwyn - it could hardy be called a castle, could it now, if it only had one window - beckwith happened to be looking out of the window of the red room - called the red room for what the saints only knew what reason, as there was nothing particularly red about it though there may well have been in the mists of time - beckwith had happened to glance out the window in a moment of exasperation while berating a particularly incompetent chambermaid - who must have been particularly incompetent or lazy, or both, to distract him in this manner as all the chambermaids, indeed all the servants in castle morwyn were lazy and incompetent if not totally moribund - and in glancing out the window - a window - at that moment - he chanced to see poor muggleton at the very moment he burst through the hedge onto the very ill-kept grounds of the castle. this in itself was remarkable as beckwith, as i may have already given some indication, was not a man to be looking out windows when the day's work was to be done. as the only living creature in the castle with a molecule of sense, except for some dogs, cats, rats, mice and spiders - there were some fearful spiders in castle morwyn, capable of giving the cats and rats a fair challenge - responsible for the supervision and shepherding through the day of a castleful of barely sentient morwyns and lazy and good for nothing servants - beckwith was not a man to be trifled with or to waste his time on trifles. this fellow now - muggleton of course, known to you and me, dear reader, but not yet to beckwith who had never set eyes on him before- and would have remembered him if he had, for he had the memory of a lion or tiger or some great ravenous beast of the time before the prophets - this fellow stumbling across the roots and brambles of the shamefully ill-kept grounds of the castle with leaves and twigs and cockleburrs from the thick hedge - and the hedge, for all it was poorly attended to, somehow remained as thick as a morwyn's skull - something to do with the endless rains in this godforsaken stretch of country no doubt - plastered all over his unprepossessing person - could beckwith trust one of the footmen or grooms or groundskeepers - all of these designations being somewhat more than whimsical as whether they were called "footmen" or "grooms" or "groundskeepers" they were nothing more than lazy worthless rascals and parasites who could not be trusted to do the simplest things once out of one's sight - to waylay and ask him his business? he could not. with a grim expression - though this description may be more than a bit superfluous as he always had a grim expression - let us say, then, with an even more grim expression than usual - beckwith left the chambermaid to her dirty tray and marched out of the red room and down the cobwebbed corridor to the rotting staircase, down three floors of increasingly dusty stairwell and out the front door - which he opened himself rather than waste precious time attempting to summon one of the layabout lackeys to open it for him - and out into the air. the air! if there was one thing beckwith had in common with the other inhabitants of the castle it was a sincere and abiding aversion to what is laughingly called "fresh" air - as if air that has blown over the whole foul human-infested earth could be said to have anything "fresh" about it by any stretch of the imagination - the air, at once sickeningly warm and yet with something of the cold clamminess of the tomb about it - smacked him in his gray gob like a dead flounder wielded by a champion batsman - but what he could he do, what could anybody do in his situation but carry on, yes, carry on. "you there! " beckwith cried to muggleton, who was making his way across the blasted and littered landscape of the castle grounds with an increasingly bewildered expression - increasingly truly the operative word as bewilderment was the very essence of muggleton's being as well as his face to the world. muggleton appeared not to hear beckwith's salutation. nor even to see him, though he stood plainly in front of the castle gate. "halloa! you there!" beckwith cried again. there was nothing wrong with beckwith's voice, as he regularly exercised it berating the staff and the morwyns. exasperated, beckwith began to move toward the oblivious muggleton. he had not gone three paces when he tripped over an exposed root and landed with a dreadful thump face down in a particularly disgusting mess of some sort. a dead animal, perhaps? something even worse? something that the sun was no longer shining on, as beckwith's head was now effectively shielding it from that entity. in any case, beckwith had at least succeeded in attracting muggleton's attention, and muggleton now came running as quickly as he could - which as the reader may have surmised was not very quickly - and quite heedless of the myriad traps and pitfalls the grounds held - reader, you can guess what happened next. * that's enough for now, thought minette. her left index finger was getting sore from tapping at the old typewriter. not too bad, she thought. minette didn't think she had ever heard of beckett before the contest. but she had been given copies of his books and had started to read them in order. she had not liked "murphy" so much, but liked "watt" better and that was the book she was trying to imitate. she got up, leaving the sheet of paper in the typewriter and went to the window and looked out. sari, minette's regular day guard, was lying on the bed and followed her with her eyes. "are you through?" "yes, for now." sari could not read or write and so, unlike some of the other guards and maids - a few of whom were virtually writing the books - was little help to minette in writing her assigned novel. she felt bad about this, and liked to be helpful by at least listening to minette reading it aloud to her, and being encouraging by laughing in what she thought were the right places. "you want to read it to me?'" "thanks, maybe later." minette stared out the window. the morning was overcast and windy, and looked cold. "you want to go out?'" sari asked her. "is anybody out there?" "no, but this is the time rosalind usually goes out." "fuck rosalind. you have just as much right to go out as she does." "i don't want anybody getting mad at me." "helga even said she didn't want rosalind getting to think she had a special time reserved. if you want to go out, let's go." "um - all right. it looks cold, though. we should bundle up." 8. blind primal desire

professor zender's experiment - 5. schon

by coraline o'connell

illustrated by eddie el greco and roy dismas

editorial consultant: Prof. Dan Leo

click here to begin professor zender's experiment

click here to begin the 14th princess

zender had always been vaguely aware that his colleagues in the modern history department regarded him as a pompous ass. he had never let this bother him. he was also aware that his field of study - anticipatory history, which he had done so much to promote and make respectable, but which was now widely considered to be totally discredited as a result of the recent worldwide upheavals - was no longer one calculated to win him fame, or a position beyond the one he now held as department chairman. if, indeed, he could hold on to his position as department chairman. he wondered what had happened to schon, his most determined adversary within the department, and if schon would be back. no doubt schon, if he returned - had zender seen him at all on the few occasions he had visited the offices during the hostilities? - would have some cutting remarks about "anticipatory history", but would he actively mount a campaign against zender? schon's specialty was the minute chronicling of the births and marriages of the prussian and bavarian aristocracies since the formation of the second empire, and he passionately believed - and defended the belief - that "history is documentation". he invariably concluded his briefs by striking the table and exclaiming - "no more and no less." zender suddenly realized - why had he not realized it before? - no doubt because he had not thought about it - that he did not care if schon mounted a new offensive against him - might in fact, welcome it, if it did not involve any serious financial consequences. financial consequences! why had he allowed such a poisonous thought to seep into his curiously and pleasantly lassitudinous brain? for is there not always a strange - though often unacknowledged - for various reasons of courtesy and propriety - exaltation at finding one in a new situation - or leaving an old one behind forever? is there not a universal music in looking back and seeing something - no matter how previously cherished - grow smaller and smaller and finally disappearing on a receding horizon? but now the music, pleasant enough as it had been, stopped. and there was no recalling it. it was over. but the poison spread. money! zender sighed. maybe morgenstern knew something . he usually did. morgenstern was still at his desk, looking at a two-page newspaper - perhaps a different one? - when zender approached him again. zender got straight to the point. "has schon come back around?" morgenstern's almost unchanging expression was one of polite skepticism. now it sharpened a bit. "schon? what would you have with schon?" zender flushed slightly. after all this time - and after hardly setting eyes on him for four years - morgenstern still had the ability to irritate him. "i should have said, have schon or any or the others come back around?" "but especially schon, eh?" "i am still head of the department - so far as i know. until i am informed otherwise. i was wondering if there was much of a department left to be head of." "you mean much of a department left for schon to aspire to be head of." zender was the least violent of men but he felt that if he had a stick in his hand he would have hit morgenstern with it. "be that as it may," zender replied evenly. "have you, or anybody else, in fact seen schon?" morgenstern laughed. "you have been out of touch. schon is widely believed to be dead." "widely believed?" "well, you know how it is these days. no one brought his body into the department in a carpet and rolled it on to the floor. but it seems to be accepted that we will not see him again." "accepted by whom?" "by the count, among others." "i see." "you have not seen the count, i take it," morgenstern asked. "no, i don't think i have seen him - i don't think i have seen him since the war began." "ah. he popped in, made the rounds about two weeks ago." "yes, i believe you mentioned that he seemed unchanged. did he have any particular message to impart?" "he told us to carry on." "of course." zender hesitated. "i don't suppose, then, we shall see him again any time soon." "no." "unless something extraordinary were to happen." "extraordinary! " morgenstern pretended to return to his paper. "what extraordinary thing could happen? especially after all that has already happened - and not happened." "look here, morgenstern, can we speak frankly for once? we know that things have changed, and will never be the same again." "why," cried morgenstern, "have we not been speaking frankly? things will never be the same again - what a thought!" he tapped the paper he had been reading. "but do you know, i have been reading the exact same sentiment in this most worthy publication." he held it out for zender's inspection. it was , as previously noted, only two pages, and of the cheapest paper. "the new torch of light," zender read the masthead. "to distinguish it from the old torch of darkness, no doubt. why do you read such rubbish?" "why?" morgenstern pulled the paper back . "because my field is contemporary - not anticipatory - history - ha ha! as you, as department head, no doubt recall even after the world has been so totally changed. "yes, of course." "permit me to read this. it is signed by a fraulein grunbaum, whom i envision as a long legged amazon of about eighteen years, though she may be old enough to be our grandmother - ' this the time, not to try the so-called soul of mankind, but to abandon the idea of civilization itself, which has exposed itself as a total sham. the mask of civilization has been torn off and tossed into the street - -and the street itself has turned to water and washed it away. nothing indeed will ever be the same -' . there you go, your very words. eloquent stuff, eh? shall i go on?" "please do not. i am sure you and fraulein grunbaum could have a most interesting correspondence on the subject of the future of civilization. i have a more pressing question. if you know the answer, i would appreciate your sharing it." "and that is?" morgenstern made no effort to mitigate his smirk. "are we to be paid? and if so, in what? and by whom?" "ah. ah. that is indeed a question." morgenstern was no longer smiling, and shifted in his seat so that he was no longer directly facing zender. "you had to ask." "i take it, then, that you know no more than i do." "i know that there is still food and drink - coffee, at any rate - here in the building. as i told you, the worthy fraulein mommsen is at your service. " "have you been in the shops lately, and attempted to purchase anything?" "no, but i have heard travelers' tales. no doubt the same ones you have, since you are asking me." morgenstern seemed to have recovered some of his earlier aplomb. he folded his paper neatly and placed it on his desk. "and are we to stay in the buiding forever," zender went on, " like shipwrecked sailors, until the fraulein's stores of plenty are exhausted?" "i suppose the count may know something. if anyone does. if you care to approach him." zender fell silent. "after all, " said morgenstern. "you are head of the department." to be continued